Quiet day and exciting night

Our remaining Paris days are for sauntering. So on Wednesday we sauntered through various streets previously unsauntered.

We called into Saint Gervais near the Hotel de Ville. This church is home to an order of monks and nuns, and they were singing the midday office in the chancel, nuns on the north and monks on the south, facing east instead of each other. Not communal.
The most notable sight was Place Igor Stravinsky (photo) where the contrast between old and new speaks for itself.
After that a visit to the Shoah memorial with the names of all the Jews deported inscribed on one wall and a wall of the Justes who sought to protect them- these unnamed. There was a display of a book called Maus (written in comic style by Art Spiegelman where the Jews are mice, the Germans cats, the Swedes reindeer, etc).
The quiet day was preparation for a wonderful evening's entertainment at the Paris opera being held at the Garnier. This is an 18th Century building complete with frescos, cherubs in gold and an enormous chandelier decorating the ceiling. The opulence of the building is evocative of wealth and privilege of a bygone era but is open to all today. We booked our seats late and had been warned of the discomfort we would experience but nothing prepared us for the beautiful red velvet seats which sat us bolt upright with a back which is a velvet covered bar and barely enough space to put our legs and no room for knees that would dig into the back of the person in front unless one sat with legs wide apart. The ambience was electric, wonderful, full of beauty with which to feed the eyes but the seats were so uncomfortable. But we counted ourselves lucky because we could have got standing room or a seat at the side, which although more supportive, meant that we would have had to do contortions in order to see the action on stage.
The opera, La Clemence de Titus by Mozart, sung in Italian with French surtitles was magnificent, an experience worth having. It lasted a little over 2 hours with 1 interval. It was an opera written mainly for a soprano and castrati with a couple of modest roles for tenors. Since we no longer have castrati, these roles were sung by mezzo sopranos. They were all fabulous. This has definitely been a highlight of our trip. We were on such a high after the opera that we went out and celebrated with a kir royale before getting home close to midnight.